A crucial point sticks out in this paper’s March 23 story about official exhortations for the police to investigate killings in Cebu that in the last month claimed the lives of at least 45 people.
Supt. Reyman Tolentin, police spokesman for Central Visayas, urged his colleagues not only to raise their visibility but also to crack down on loose firearms.
What more can police do against illegal gun possession apart from manning randomly set up nocturnal checkpoints?
Driving down the rate of gun violence across the country depends so much on finding practicable answers to this question.
The nationwide drive to end the trade in illegal drugs will take great forward strides if our police not only jail those who violate our gun laws but also manage to plug the entry points of gun supply.
For how else but through such entry points do hitmen and persons linked to outlawed narcotics who slug it out with law enforcers during operations get hold of these deadly weapons?
Stopping the flow of guns into society to stop in its tracks gun violence of all sorts is no novel idea. But given the latest in deaths by guns, the Firearms and Explosives Office of the Philippine National Police would do well to upgrade its regulatory work.
No one desires a vicious cycle where public funds go to purchasing more and more weapons for police to be well-equipped against prospective killers simply because the authorities fail to block criminal access to firearms.
The number of deaths per 100,000 people in the Philippines is 7.2, nearly twice Thailand’s 4.12 and many times more than Malaysia’s 0.3 and Vietnam’s 0.18. These numbers come from the database of Gun Policy, a global organization based in the Sydney School of Public Health.
Between 160,750 to 610,000 Philippine guns are unlawfully held, states various sources from the United Nations to the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.
Contemplate the wonders that can be wrought through strict weapons control.
Gone would be deaths through accidental gun firing, “nanlaban” or alleged return fire from suspected crooks, drive-by shootings and liquidation jobs.
Reduced, if not eliminated would be the prospect of fatalities in the conduct of drug raids.
Strict gun control may be a tall order for firearms and explosives experts in our police force, but its benefits are worth all the effort they can and should exert.
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